The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Faithful feed 'a lot more with less' this year
According to the Bible, Jesus had five loaves and two fifish to feed 5,000. Pastor Frederick Caldwell has a little over 500 turkeys.
Caldwell, who runs a food pantry ministry out of Grace Community Fellowship Church in southwest Atlanta, has to make the birds stretch to serve about 800 families who need help putting Thanksgiving dinner on the table this year.
He’d hoped to wrangle an additional 100 before the boxed dinners went out for delivery Saturday morning. It would be a pretty steep order during a typical November, but in a year marred by food shortages and fifinancial hardship amid a languishing pandemic, it’s been a downright feat.
“Maybe we were being ambitious,” he said last week as his walk- in freezer was stuffed to the brim and volunteers made fifinal preparations. “First it was the turkeys, then it started being the sides, getting cans in bulk like green beans and stuffing. When it’s all said and done, we’ll be somewhere close to 600 turkeys. We’ve got chickens and hams, and we’re going to use those, too.”
Add this Thanksgiving to the long li st of unprecedented events of 2020. In years past, Grace Community Fellowship has hosted a big community dinner in its sanctuary, dishing up hot plates and providing clothes, haircuts and medical screenings to seniors and others in need.
Caldwell said it was not uncommon for the ho liday event to draw crowds of 1,000.
Concerns over COVID- 19 have made a large indoor event impossible this year, so Caldwell and his team of volunteers have improvised. What was once a $ 5,000 dinner has more than doubled in cost.
“It’s going to work out; it always has,” Caldwell said with confidence.
Grace Community Fellowship is one of more than 700 churches, soup kitchens and other nonprofit organizations that partner with the Atlanta Community Food Bank to distribute food to communities in need. The holidays are always a busy time for the food bank, but with all its added stress, demand in 2020 is even higher, said ACFB President and CEO Kyle Waide.
The food bank has seen a 300% increase in inquiries from people seeking food assistance since the start of the pandemic. Waide estimates that 30% more families are food insecure now than back in early March. Households with children have been hit the hardest.
“We all know f rom our own lives that the holidays pull us in a lot of directions financially, and our clients are no different,” he said. “We see more demand for food assistance during the holidays in any year, and that is certainly true this year where we have more people needing help.”
Waide said the food bank typically relies heavily on donations from food distributors but has increased its purchasing to keep up with demand, contributing to a 47% increase in expenses to date. In October, the organization distributed 12 million pounds of food, about double what it used to accomplish in a single month.
Extraordinarily, financial support from community donors has kept pace. That generosity, Waide said, is what keeps him from getting bogged down by the mounting challenges.
“What’s even more inspiring are the incredible servant leaders who are out in the community at our food pantry partners, serving people every day,” he said.
At Grace Community Fellowship, Caldwell said help from resources like the food bank has allowed their ministry to stretch to meet ever- changing needs. Their food pantry is down to one day a week and is run outdoors. They have taken their efforts mobile, serving 2,000 frozen meals a month to residents in nearby senior living towers.
This week, the church will benefit from the Atlanta Community Food Bank’s Thanksgiving Dish program and will provide hot meals to those same senior high- rises. The food bank aims to make 3,500 meals in total, for distribution to 14 partner agencies across North Georgia.
Together with the boxed turkey deliveries, Caldwell hopes to serve a total of 1,000 families over the two events.
“We’ve done a lot more with less, and there’s been shortages of things, just like we’ve found with the turkeys, but it’s all worked out,” he said of his food pantry’s pandemic efforts. “We’ve actually been able to help more people.”
Beyond the holidays, Waide said it is likely demand for food support will remain elevated into 2021. Food pantries have been buoyed thus far by a robust federal response, but Waide said those support programs are about to wind down.
If they want to keep up, more stimulus support is needed in the form of SNAP benefits and additional federal commodities provided directly to families, he said. With those types of economic underpinnings, the food bank and its partner programs are less encumbered and can get more food on the table of families in need.
“I think the vast majority of us, deep down, want to help our neighbors,” Waide said.